Sometimes the topic of consciousness is cited as an impenetrable mystery or the greatest remaining mystery in the universe; and sometimes free will versus determinism receives that dubious honor. As long as they are not recognized as imposed constructs, they will remain great mysteries, for they send workers off in wrong directions chasing after phantoms. Constructs are a legitimate and necessary part of science but must be derived from observable events and not imposed on the events from traditional sources (Kantor, 1981; Smith, 2007).

Self-knowledge is an important, yet understudied topic in behavior analysis. In our view, self-knowledge is related to a critical issue in behavior analysis, especially radical behaviorism, namely, the analysis of so-called “private events”. The authors have been considering the analysis of private events in behavior analysis for many years (e.g., Parrott, 1983c, 1986; Hayes & Fryling, 2009a), and have arrived at an unconventional position with respect to the admission of private events into the more general class of events considered by behavior analysts.